CW: fears of bigotry - I would feel absolutely horrible if I made anyone feel uncomfortable. I have no intention of minimizing the genuine trauma and injustice of oppressive systems. I beg of you not to read this if you might be insulted, and I apologize in advance for any potential harm my honesty might cause. I really hope it doesn’t. Also CW for anxiety about worthlessness/stupidity and lying/exaggerating diagnosis. Hey everyone. I want to start by saying that, if you’re only logging on for a few minutes, you don’t need to prioritize my post. I know many folks on here are in crisis and don’t have much of a support system, and I believe they need and deserve responses before I do. (I have a therapist and supportive family.) But I’ve been afraid to post on here for a few months now, and I’m finally doing it, though I don’t really know why, because it feels futile + wrong. I’m so terrified that I’m a worthless person in every way. I feel like I’m a disgusting bigot. I have horrible racist thoughts and I know I’m not sufficiently disturbed by them. I was diagnosed with OCD, but I feel like I’m just using this as an excuse when I am, in truth, an unforgivable monster. I’ve had therapists tell me that, if I was truly who I think and fear I am, I wouldn’t be so disturbed by my thoughts, but I just don’t believe that’s true, even if I wish it were. I know that these beliefs are evil because of the environment I grew up in, but wanting to be anti-oppressive doesn’t necessarily mean one is; anybody can hold bigoted beliefs, even if they don’t like them, and I feel I must pay attention to them and suffer as a result. I’m currently on leave from college and I know I’m going to have to go back because that’s what my parents want, but I truly feel I am a horrible person and I don’t deserve success or happiness. I feel I should suffer in perpetuity and be isolated from society; otherwise, I may forget how diabolical I truly am. I feel terrified that I’m exaggerating my suffering; that I’m not depressed or anxious enough and that I’m too easily getting through the day, which a good person with these thoughts or a truly mentally ill person never could, but that I’m not even afraid enough of being a liar. I need to be a good person and do the right thing, but I’m being forced into treatment, which I know is a privilege; however, I fear it will desensitize me from my horribleness, thereby making me even worse. I’ve tried so hard to believe I’m not this awful person, because I desperately don’t want to be, but I can’t delude myself when the evidence is overwhelming. I know that if these were just intrusive thoughts, I wouldn’t have the right ones sometimes and the wrong ones in other situations; I wouldn’t be able to so easily move past them, and there wouldn’t be exceptions to my horrible beliefs. I also know that I am a worthless person in other ways. I am so stupid, incompetent, and irresponsible. I don’t even know how to navigate getting around my city despite being 20, I lack common sense and basic knowledge - I am a horrible human being and I feel like I lied to myself for my whole life.

back in october i made my first post about my specific type of ocd, how it mixes in with my day to day and how i “deal” with it. i talked about the starting point, how it gradually got worse, and then how it was going just a few months ago. i always think it’s insane how much can change in just the course of a small to a large amount of time. right now, i honestly feel like garbage. to be quite sincere i really want to give up, i’m barely holding on by a thread. and if i cut that thread, i really doubt anyone would care. i’ve never considered myself to be a suicidal person, and i still don’t consider myself that right now. it just gets to a point where it’s just, a lot to deal with. i don’t really enjoy things a lot nowadays. sure i have good days like everyone does, like today, when i was just enjoying my day without worries. but then it all comes crawling back twice as bad the following days. i take online college so i’m usually just stuck at home most of the time. but, when i do decide to actually go out and leave my house, my ocd just explodes because i have this whole routine i need to do or else i feel like i’ll contaminate wherever i end up going. i’m not going to go really deep into my compulsions because it’s hard enough to live with them, much more having to type them all out in detail. but when i go out my compulsions go from wiping down all my stuff i’m going to use after showering, to washing my clothes/cleaning the washer + dryer. i also have separate things (or two of the same thing) i use specifically in my house, and items i use when going out. such as shampoo/body wash, deodorant, lotion, hair curler, etc. as if that’s not draining enough, i also feel the need to fast a couple days prior to any plan i make because i’ve forced myself to believe i need to feel empty in order to be clean. i’m not sure if that’s my past eating disorder talking, or my ocd, but my brain can’t help but think any food in my house is utterly and completely contaminated. i’m so tired of this feeling, feeling like nothing will ever be clean again. feeling like my ocd is trapped in my childhood home. feeling that wave of diseases rushing through my veins the moment i step foot into what’s supposed to be “home”. and i’m so scared of therapy because what if i do get healed, and then everything comes rushing back the second i step into my room. i’m planning on moving somewhere far from my current house in this next coming year, so sometimes i feel like just waiting it out. but it’s insufferable when going to hangout with someone. i miss my friends, my family, and my partner. it’s crazy to me that i’m dealing with all this at the young age of 18 but, i’m sure lots of people have it way worse. i just want to find a way out, any possible way. but i keep pushing myself deeper and deeper that when i finally find a way, it will no longer exist.

So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.

This is just a vent. Feels nice to just be honest about who I am and my deficiencies. Mental health advocates are always like "you deserve to live no matter what" and I'm like "bet lol" I am not a good person whose presence has any positive impact on the world. I'm not evil, just useless without having the excuse of depression or whatever (it's anxiety based but again who gives a shit). If I were to go away, I wouldn't be missed because I contribute nothing of note. If we did not live in the US where you can get by without being socially accepted as long as you have loving parents, I would either be dead or would have stepped up and might actually be a valuable member of society (like between being dead and pushing through my anxiety I would probably choose the latter lol). Interpersonally, I have no redeeming qualities. No I'm not one of those people who says that shit and then lists all the ways they're actually decent but just have low self-esteem, I'm genuinely useless. I'm unreliable when it comes to group projects and my job, usually doing the bare minimum or less than that. When it comes to my work in general, I tend to drop the ball, often waiting till the last minute to get started on it, turning it in late, or simply not turning it in at all. I make promises about the things I will do and then don't do them. I also lack initiative and just follow orders. Socially, I don't have any friends and don't make an effort to try to gain any - I tend to act distant in social interactions and don't join in when people are having group conversations. I'm a talented artist, but the only work I've ever shown others in the last few years has been shoddy, amateurish, and completely unreflective of my abilities, and I've never been complimented for it lol. How do I feel about all this? Pretty freaking bad, yet I make no effort to change. I'm afraid of most things so I avoid them, screwing up my own life and negatively affecting other people's as well. Despite all this, I have this desire to be accepted by someone else as I am. The fact that I accept myself shows that it's possible, I guess (you could argue that I don't have a choice but I definitely chose to be okay with myself after years of self-loathing). I have a shit-ton of flaws and nothing to really offset them - I mean I'm self-aware but I think self-awareness is completely useless if you don't do anything about what you've observed in yourself, and less self-aware people are able to take more risks - and I just have this fantasy of someone showing up and looking at all that I am and being like "you have contributed literally nothing to society and you have no redeeming qualities but I accept you as you are and love you, for no reason other than I just do." But based on the comics I've read this can only happen if you're childhood friends who've known each other for a long time lol. No reason someone's gonna want to be friends with some random person who leaves a poor first impression and doesn't do anything to further the relationship. The plus side of this is that I have a /lot/ of room for growth, lots of things to change that could make me a better person. The negative side is that it is still just as hard to not be avoidant af as it was yesterday